Return of the dog whisperer

By Phil Jarratt

“I like to live and think like a dog,” former Noosa all-round waterman and businessman Chris De Aboitiz recently told the ABC’s Back Roads program.

For many of the one-time Waikiki beach boy’s old friends, this admission explained a lot, but in fact Chris was referring to a life-long passion for our four-legged friends which, in the eight years since he moved to Agnes Water, has blossomed into an all-consuming business empire.

Chris, Australian-born but raised in Hawaii, rolled into Noosa in the late 1980s and immediately became a force to be reckoned with, both for his uncanny skills on all forms of surfboard and for his business acumen. With what often seemed like reckless abandon, he moved…